The City St Joseph is offering a big “thank you” to all the volunteers who turned out to help fill sandbags for flood control

“Over the weekend alone we had about 190 (volunteers),” said the city’s Public Information Officer Mary Robertson. “We just want to express our sincere gratitude to everyone who did take the time to come down and help.”

Robertson says they more than met their goal of 250,000 sandbags. She says the final tallly will exceed 365,000.

Football players from Central High School, Benton High School, and Missouri Western turned out Sunday, and ramped up the effort, allowing them to call it a day earlier than planned.

“They triple-timed our efforts. That was part of the reason we did finish up a little early. Those guys just came down, got right down to business, and turned a lot of sandbags,” Robertson said.

The National Guard, and inmates from St Joseph and Chilicothe joined volunteers to fill sandbags for more than a week.

Robertson says they have already deployed 130,000 sandbags. They have an additional 180,000 on pallets and ready to be deployed.